tangovangelism

I have been fairly restrained on this subject, considering how much of my life is taken up by this activity, but I am happy to say that as of today the hubs and I have successfully tango-vangelized five people and continue to bring the good word to anyone who demonstrates so much as a passing curiosity in our argentine tango obsession, which has been going strong for five years now and shows no signs of abating. That's one convert per year since we started, and they're all still practicing believers...I wonder how we stack up against Mormons or Seventh Day Adventists. Maybe we should try hanging out at the airport, or on busy corners in Third World countries.

Tonight we have class and tomorrow, jkgeroo welcomes us into her home to try to bring her honey-love into the light. I'm a bit nervous because I know what an enraptured crank I become when I get started on tango. Tango is yoga for two, the secret to tango is the same as the secret to a healthy relationship, tango is zen, approach tango the way you would a road trip, insert metaphor of choice.

Dancing tango has changed my musical tastes, my fashion sense, my body image. It's changed how I approach conflict resolution, physical activity, and teaching and learning. It's helped me push my own limits and live in the moment (it's also given me a rock-hard spot on the outer edge of each big toe that I am pretty sure will never go away).

I'm beginning to think that there is a difference between broad pursuits and deep pursuits. Broad pursuits are those that, by nature, call for people to acquire ever greater quantities of skills, techniques, facts or things: like stamp collecting or baseball statistics or trivia night. Deep pursuits are the kind that, by nature, call for you to do the same handful of things better and better as you go, like yoga. You can bring a deep or broad approach to deep or broad pursuits, but if you bring a deep approach to stamp collecting you'll hit bottom fairly quickly, and if you bring a broad approach to yoga you'll soon wonder what the big deal about yoga is. Finding enduring satisfaction in either kind of activity calls for bringing the adequate approach to it. Some people get easily bored with deep pursuits because they need immediate payoffs - the progress in deep pursuits is often glacial and cyclical. I'm more prone to boredom with broad pursuits, because I can foresee myself eventually exhausting them without really having to interrogate anything within myself.

I'm sure you can see where this is going...I think Argentine tango is a deep pursuit. People who approach it as a broad pursuit are interlopers looking to add to their repertoire, or the chronic gancho-ers and boleo-ers (ganchos and boleos are those fancy leg hooks and flourishes you see on Dancing With the Stars) that clog up the dance floor and stiletto people in the shins. Once they've punched themselves out, they'll move on to another broad pursuit. To the uninitiated eye, tango approached deeply can look almost boring. But I can promise you: the less you see, the more is happening for the two people in the embrace.

Now that I've fallen this deep into my chosen pursuit, it's hard for me to imagine anyone not wanting to dance tango, or for that matter dabbling in it. I guess I think a satisfying life requires at least one deep pursuit approached deeply. What's yours